That We Play
(EP)

Listeners who only know Daniel Lopatin's solo work as Oneohtrix Point Never may be surprised by Games, his duo with Tigercity's Joel Ford. In contrast to OPN's blissed-out ambient drift, Games traffics in unabashedly nostalgic electro-pop, reproducing both the textures and song structures of mid-'80s acts like Propaganda and Thomas Dolby; Kate Bush's swirling, psycho-suggestive airs infuse the edges of the music. Still, it's easy to hear Lopatin's Juno synthesizers at the center of the mix; they've simply been tuned to a sweeter frequency. New-wave pastiche doesn't get much better.